Boarding School. The words were twin bowling balls in my stomach. At school, they were a heavy darkness, dragging me down and making me feel their constant presence in the back of my head. At night, the bowling balls invited their friends, a bunch of snobs, and had parties, the loud kind where everyone has too much to drink but somehow keep themselves going until witching hour, sometimes even dawn. They kept me awake with them, drying my eyes until they felt cracked from hours staring at my blank ceiling. Then, when morning called, shrill and empty and hopeless, I'd have to get up and drag them with me, no matter how much they(and my entire body) protested.

And a week ago I'd been happy.

Not happy happy, not the kind of happy you are when you have friends and hobbies and a purpose in life, but the kind of happy you are when you realize that in fourteen short days school will be out and you can

a) not spend every waking moment on studying

b) maybe get down to the little hockey rink more often

c) escape, to some extent, the fear and paranoia that comes with someone secretly threatening you almost every day

I had a summer job, of course, because of course occasional relaxation was taboo for my Maman. But now none of that mattered. I was being shipped off.

"Raymond, honey?" As soon as she had said that, I knew I was in trouble. We were eating dinner, just sitting across from each other at the oval-shaped dark wood dining room table as usual, and as soon as she used that tone the dread started to kick in. I peeked up at her, trying not to show too much suspicion. I had been taking little nibbles off my steaming plate in an attempt to still have some tongue left unscalded when I was finished. Her cooking was great (well, she was French, not to mention she owned a restaurant) but she rarely allowed time for it to cool down.

"Yes?" I was supposed to respond that way, never vaguely.

"Well, honey, your grades...I know you're trying very hard and doing the best you can, but I'm afraid it's your teachers. They just don't understand you enough to work with you on the level that could be offered…What I'm trying to say is I think it would be best if you switched schools." I looked into her eyes, and they were melted chocolate staring honestly back at me, pleading me not to be angry. I was shocked, but only for a second. This was just like her, examining my life from every angle, trying to see what she could improve without even stopping to consider that it was mine. Anger flared inside me for a moment. But I figured things couldn't get much worse anyway, so what the heck, I might as well go with it and see where it takes me.

"What school?" She hesitated for a moment, then stared at her food as she answered. This wasn't like her, and I was getting a little scared.

"Now, don't get upset, honey, but I think it would be best if…Well, I found this nice…this really nice school up in Maine—"

"Maine?" We live in Taylor, Oklahoma. But it wasn't just that that made me uneasy. There was something in her voice, something in the set of her mouth and the way her hands shook as they fiddled with the fork on her plate-she never fidgeted!-that was off, that was worried. She hid things well, and had never seemed anxious to me at all. So if her hands were shaking...Variations on a zombie apocalypse flashed through my mind.

"Raymond, it's rude to interrupt." She was looking me in the eye now. "There will be some challenges, but I know you can adjust. It's a boarding school, and the teachers seem to love what they do, and I just know you'll love it." My stomach tightened. I know what you're thinking: if my life couldn't get any worse, why was I being all melodramatic?

I get homesick. Easily. And I absolutely hate snobs, which, of course, stereotypical boarding schools are full of. And what kind of mother would send her kid off to some preppy overnighter academy at the start of his junior year? Of course, she wasn't really my mother, but she adopted the role well enough. In fact, she was more mother-y than most of the moms I knew, not that I knew many. At least she had never tried to interfere with my nonexistent social life, for which I was grateful. But this?! I was a straight-A student (with, like, two A minuses)! Who was she to complain about my grades?

We ate in frigid silence for about another fifteen minutes, at the end of which I excused myself without waiting for her, which normally would have been a huge mistake, but tonight she let it go. I scrubbed my plate, maybe not exactly until squeaky clean, and went up to my room to contemplate my certain demise in three months.

I leaned back on my twin bed, hands behind my head, and stared up at the green glow-in-the-dark stars that were still there from when I was three. The paint was chipped slightly on a couple of them, but they still glowed all right. Maybe, I thought, if you get a hundred on all the finals, she'll let you stay. But I knew that wasn't true. Maman Gisele may have seemed warm and caring and all that, and I supposed she was, but once she made up her mind about me, she didn't going back. Maybe I would have been angrier had I thought I could change the path I was on, but I knew better.

The end of school was approaching fast. The finals came and went, and despite knowing I couldn't change things, I had hit the books and aced them. A hundred on three, ninety-nine on one, and ninety-eight on the other two. Which basically meant Maman no longer had an excuse for sending me packing. On the night before the last day of school, we watched a celebratory movie together (hey, her choice, not mine—I didn't see what there was to celebrate). It was a family comedy, nothing too great. There wasn't much else to think about, and the curiosity was starting to gnaw at me, so eventually I bit the bullet and asked.

"It's not my grades, is it? The reason you're sending me off?" She went pale and kind of stiffened at that.

"Your grades are only part of it. I'm hoping you'll make some new friends. It's good to have people to talk to, honey."

Scratch that social life thing.

I snickered, and as soon as I did I knew it was a mistake. She took on a stern expression (sterner than usual) and shifted to face me, her caramel curls bobbing like springs.

"Raymond, I take your health very seriously. It's my job as your mom to make sure you have people you can count on."

Sure, I wanted to say, but where was this mom all the other years I was friendless? I held my tongue, though.

Curiosity killed the cat.